Album of the Evening

[Musicophile]

My favorite Tchaikovsky 5. Originally a SACD; no idea why eclassical has only 16/44 available as download. Excellent sonics nevertheless.

 

Neeme Järvi: Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 5 - Gothenburg

 

[Musicophile]

Jimmy Smith: The Cat SHM-SACD. SQ is on the bright side. Semi-disappointed. Reviews gave The Cat a 10 for performance and an 8 for sound. I concur. As recommended at this thread by those who know.

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I only have the regular redbook, and agree, sound is not the forte.

[Musicophile]

Getting better every time I listen to it:

 

Helge Lien Trio: Natsukashii

 

[Musicophile]

Playing this over and over again:

 

Ola Gjeilo: Piano improvisations (24/192)

 

 

And following inspiration from our recent Great Pianist thread:

 

Keith Jarrett: Still Live (redbook)

 

What a fantastic album.

 

[Musicophile]

Mendelssohn Symphony 3 & 4 - Dohnanyi

 

 

Monty Alexander - The Good Life

 

[Musicophile]

Respighi: Gli Uccelli /Vetrate Di Chiesa; Scarlatti & Tommasini: Le Donne Di Buon Umore XLD conversion redbook CD to AIFF.

 

 

 

Richard, if you like Respighis' Birds, have you tried this version:

 

https://www.hdtracks.com/index.php?file=catalogdetail&valbum_code=HD030911109523

 

Musically quite nice, but really, what a sound. One of my all time best recording from a technical point of view:

 

Also features the extremely rarely recorded Queen of Sheba, plus the usual Pines.

[Musicophile]

+1. I couldn't agree more. Over the past year, as I have bought more and more music following posts on this forum, in my experience I have found the recommendations made on this forum to be very much more reliable than the ones from the music magazines.

Isn't this the point of this thread? I cannot even count the number of nice recommendations I got here. For example, next week I'll be probably seeing Vijay Iyer live for the first time, discovered here.

[Musicophile]

Beethoven: Violin sonata no. 6 - Faust - Melnikov

 

 

Followed by:

 

Bach: St Johns Passion - Gardiner

 

[Musicophile]

 

As for Iyer, who would recommend a pianist such as he?

 

 

Don't remember. Some guy called Richard or something.

[Musicophile]

 

Ola Gjeilo: Northern Lights: Choral Works by Ola Gjeilo Hybrid SACD XLD conversion to AIFF. Recommended at this thread by those who know -- his name, ah, it's is on the tip of my tongue.

 

Enjoying the music,

Moi, aka Richard

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I knew Ola was doing choral but have never checked it out, as I am still mesmerized by his solo piano. Is this any good?

[Musicophile]

Just noticed on olagjeilo.com you can listen to full tracks. Very beautiful indeed.

[Musicophile]

Still stuck in my Latin rut.

And Oh, what ditch to dig!

 

SACD rip to FLAC

 

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I have an old Peplowski record (some late 80's Concord stuff) in some box downstairs in my vinyl box, it is time I access that again. Maybe get my turntable back in order.

[Musicophile]

Another discovery to which I listened recently and enjoyed very much, in excellent 24/88 sound from Qobuz: At Peace from Malian kora player Ballaké Sissoko.

Boris, you inspired me to go world music as well:

 

Ludovico Einaudi & Ballaké Sissoko: Diario Mali

 

[Musicophile]

Slowly enlarging my Helge Lien collection: this one (2002) is great as well, with amazing versions of Speak No Evil and Take Five:

 

Spiral Circle (redbook)

 

 

Followed by:

 

Donny Hathaway Live 1972 (24/192)

[Musicophile]

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This is a great work!

I wish someone would have told me about it.......

Oh, wait.....

 

Thanks, Melvin.

 

Ripped FLAC from SACD

Got it now as well. +1!

[Musicophile]

Mozart: Cosi fan tutte - René Jacobs

 

[Musicophile]

Two new discoveries thanks to having subscribed to TAS electronically:

 

Wayne Shorter: Without a Net

 

 

Wayne's brand new (Feb 13) first album on Blue Note after 4 decades, given that I'm a great Shorter fan, I was expecting a lot. And well, feelings a are bit mixed. A great opus, very well recorded (from his 2011 live tour in Europe), but sometimes a simple mind like me needs a melody. But maybe that's just me.

 

Followed by a musician I didn't know: Chris Potter. Need to investigate more, but just listening to his 2001 album Gratitude, which really is great, lots of energy.

 

[Musicophile]

Some great piano & bass sessions to continue:

 

Oscar Peterson and the Bassists - Montreux '77

 

 

So much fun to be had with both of Oscar's favorite Bass players, Ray Brown & Nils-Henning Oersted Petersen together.

 

Followed by:

 

Junior Mance: Softly As Un a Morning Sunrise

 

Ugly cover, great music

 

[Musicophile]

I

For my effort of lesser demand, I pass the mouse over the icon of Maestro Karajan & am treated to a classic, composed by a classic, performed by a classic of some V nice classical.

 

No. 4

 

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Hi Bill, which Karajan cycle is that (He did 3 on DG), from which period? And where do you find the 24/96 download?

[Musicophile]

My apologies.

It is a 24/96 vinyl rip of the 1960's cycle.

The misleading image is the result of my relaxed vetting of the meta data automatically imported during the Foobar upload.

Thanks Bill. I was already wondering if I had misses something. The 60's cycle is great by the way.

[Musicophile]

Agreed, the '60's cycle is basically the universally accepted benchmark.

 

Which one is 'best' is purely a personnel decision.

 

However, the erroneous image in my previous post has peaked my curiosity.

Possibly a SACD issue?

The 60's cycle is indeed available on SACD but I had never seen a high res PCM version yet.

[Musicophile]

One of the albums I go back very often these days because it is so beautiful, and tough competition to my other favorite collection from Kremer/Argerich. Plus it is very well recorded.

 

Isabelle Faust / Alexander Melnikov: Beethoven Violin Sonatas

 

This time I listened to no. 5 and 10.

 

[Musicophile]

Anat Fort - And If. One of those albums I cannot get enough of.

 

 

For those of you in NYC; she's playing in a month or so live at the Cornelia Street Café, highly recommended.

[Musicophile]

@Richard: You're welcome!

 

Back to topic:

 

Beethoven: Eroica - Rattle - Berlin

 

My favorite symphony in this cycle, and one of my favorite Eroica interpretation, nearly HIP (as much as the Berliner can be), very fast, but extremely energetic.

 

[Musicophile]

ECMs new releases are always worth watching. This is my latest addition:

 

Elina Duni Quartet: Matane Malit

 

 

The young (born 1981) singer and composer, Elina Duni, emigrated at the age of 10 from Albania to Switzerland. This is her first full album sung in Albanian (most of her past work was in English) and also her first on ECM.

 

Could be qualified as Jazz or World music, she sings beautifully over sparse Jazz Piano Trio arrangements. Extremely well recorded. The beautiful cover very much captures the atmosphere of this amazing music.